You Lose 75% of This Hormone by Age 55 (Here's How to Get It Back)

Oh, Dr. Anna, I'm excited to talk to you today. We're going to talk about some things that, you know, I think a lot of times, even in my own podcast, I don't think get covered enough around hormone replacement therapy. You know, we talk a lot about estrogen and we talk a lot about even testosterone because those are the probably the two most controversial hormones currently in women's health. But today I want to do a deeper dive with you because you have an interesting look and you've been in this industry for so long, you're a New York Times bestseller multiple times over, helping women have their hormone fit. So let's, let's dig in and let's talk specifically first about progesterone because you feel like it doesn't get its fair due by any, right?

Yeah. And I always like to look at progesterone and pregnenolone together. And, you know, but first I was like preface, it takes more than hormones to fix our hormones. Okay? It really does. It takes more than hormones to fix a hormone. So, you know, I'm very passionate about that. You know, lifestyle, nutrition, nutraceuticals, all of the, you know, all of the key factors that really help and hormones are about the, the, you know, maybe 10% of it, 5 to 10%. And so, but progesterone and pregnenolone, because progesterone has gotten such a bad rap over the years, right? It really has. And because progesterone form best absorbed, we had the bio, the only bioidentical prescription form we had was prometrium for the longest time and it's generic. So now we can get generic progesterone. And that's all good. But you know, how research if in pharmaceuticals, if they, they can't patent a bioidentical, they have to patent the delivery system the bioidentical is in. So like the estra bioidentical estradiol patches or vaginal rings and things like that, and the prometrium, the oral capsule. And so, so it. Not a lot of money's invested into it as far as the research, because you go generic and pharma's not going to make a lot potentially off of it. So that's been a great disservice to women before, during and after menopause. And when I look at the mother, hormones derived from cholesterol, very good cholesterol, so good for us and good mounts. But when, you know, progesterone and pregnenolone are derived from that sometimes pronounced pregnenolone and some. When you put it into your chat, I'm like, have you guys heard of pregnenolone or whatever? Can. Everyone can. Listening can try that. It'll be like, pregnant alone. No, not pregnant alone, but. Well, maybe, but, you know, pregnant alone. And these are mother hormones that we derive our other hormones from and neurosteroids. So, for example, cortisol is derived from progesterone and pregnenolone. So we want to look at these as the mother hormones, the precursor hormones to our, to our reproductive hormones, including dhea, testosterone and estrogen. But with, you know, the HERS trial and the Women's Health Initiative, they use synthetic progestin, sometimes called a progesterone. So they use progesterone and progestins interchangeably. So it becomes very confusing for our patients and our clients and our listeners. So we need to really emphasize it needs to be bioidentical. Progesterone and pregnenolone. And these are neuroprotective. They can help with traumatic, traumatic brain injury. It can help with memory, can help with mood, anxiety, depression, postpartum depression, PMS and, you know, memory in general. It's very powerful. Also sleep. It's so helpful for sleep. And it is, you know, one of the best regenerative hormones that we have. And it gets depleted by 75% from ages 35 to 55 in women. So 75%. And that's a huge. You feel that difference, right? That feels like pms. That feels like. And shows up as irregular menstrual cycles. Breakthrough bleeding. And, you know, the perimenopausal dysfunctional bleeding can show up in those ways. But the mood swings, the irritability, the memory loss, the brain fog, the loss of good luster to your hair, all of those can be very, you know, are very well associated with low progesterone and pregnant alone, as well as bone loss. Let's not forget the bone loss issue and breast protection. So this is where, you know, using, you know, incorporating ways lifestyle and adaptogens to have our body produce more progesterone and pregnant alone and reduce the drain of cortisol. That's key. But also when we use it, to use it wisely with or without a uterus. Right, Betty? Yeah.

You know, it's interesting because I get so many women that'll say, oh, do I have to do progesterone? I'm like, girl, you want to do progesterone because that's how you're going to sleep and not rip somebody's head. Off, you know, and I'm being. I'm being funny, but I'm being really honest, like progesterone. And. And it's. It's because medroxyprogestins are, you know, considered pro. Inflammatory, and they do get looped together, so people don't understand the difference. But progesterone is so profoundly helpful.

Absolutely. And like, first, when I started implementing this in early 2000s, as I got really deep into progesterone and the brain research and the preliminary research that was being done specifically out of Emory, where was my, you know, where I graduated, where I did my residency in gynecology and obstetrics, our neuro ICU unit. So people who had traumatic brain injury, seizures, et cetera, but specifically with traumatic brain injuries, they were doing the protective three trials which looked at progesterone as a protective in traumatic brain injury. If we got it to them soon enough, and they were injecting it IV during that time using bioidentical progesterone and getting excellent results. And then pharma is like, well, we need to add on. I forget what they added on, like a cypionate or some other molecule to the progesterone, and they're like, we're not getting good results. But every. A neurosurgeon in that unit said if they were to have a family member come in, without a doubt, they would give them immediately a bolus dose of IV progesterone.

Yeah, you know, it's. It's crazy to me that it's. I guess it's not crazy, but it's frustrating. Yeah, yeah. Or intra. Yeah, intramuscular. What's frustrating to me is that we constantly see endpoints in studies change when whoever's paying for it, usually, or the researchers, because of their own bias, don't see the outcome that they want. They're like, oh, let's change directions of what the study was originally intended to do so I can massage my data to fit it, and at the end of the day, we pay the price for it. And I would say Women's health more so than anybody else, because the bias often is really unsubstantiated and unsupported. And we saw that with the Women's Health Initiative. But even here, they're like, oh, wait a, we're going to add a molecule to it because we can't patent bioidentical progesterone, and we're not going to make a killing on it. So we'll just kind of tank the study by adding A molecule. It's just frustrating.

It's tragic really. It's a disservice for us as women and many women have become afraid of it and as opposed to like really welcome it, like you said, you know, like, you're going to feel so good. And so my patients, who I really have to honor, women who have had hysterectomies, whether I did it or did someone else did it, and then I used progesterone drone, they would be like, Dr. Anna, I feel like a cloud has lifted. Like they come back for their six week follow up and I feel like a cloud has lifted. I feel better than ever. And you know, my memory's back, I've got my edge back, I'm sleeping well, life is full color as opposed to shades of gray anymore. So, so. And I'm like, okay. And that really helped me look into more of the research on progesterone in the brain, the neuroprotective effects of progesterone. And that of course led me to pregnant Al. Like, okay, well let's look at these mother hormones and what's happening. And you know, both work very well for memory, cognition, brain protection. And again, you feel the difference, you typically will feel the difference.

Yeah. And I think it's really cool. Let's dig in a little bit on pregnenolone because like you said, it is a precursor. So it's like, you know, the parent to all these other ones. But the other beautiful thing is it is something that is actually at least currently in the United States considered an over the counter supplement like DHEA that can be helpful, but I don't think it gets its fair due. You know, I don't think people recognize that it has a significant impact for memory. And, and you know, even if somebody's like maybe not even looking at hormone replacement therapy, maybe they're early perimenopause or not there yet pregnenolone has application even if we're not talking about menopause at all.

Absolutely, absolutely. And it's one of the reasons, like I'm my balance cream, that I combine both progesterone and pregnenolone together of course, with some anti aging skin goodies, like some essential oils and tripeptides, but so, you know, incorporated that in together because they do work hand in hand.

Yeah, yeah, it's so important. So it's a significant molecule for memory and focus. And so even if somebody's not considering hormone replacement therapy, pregnenolone can absolutely be used for all of those areas, even Long after menopause. Because I'm sure I know you get this, because I get it every day is, oh, I might be 65, 70 years old. I've been told I can't do hormone replacement therapy, so therefore I can't have any benefit. Which isn't true.

I got to tell you, you know, I have a, you know, I've been doing this a long time. And you were kind just to say a long time, but over 30 years. So been doing this a long time. And I had, you know, my practice I established in, in Georgia back in 1999. So one of my. So yeah, 25 years ago and probably at age 4850, I started using for this one patient I'm thinking of. She's 65. You turned 65 last year. And her gynecologist, that. Because when I moved out of Dallas and closed my practice, I was just like, keep on your prescription. She can fine tune it. As time goes. She never changed it, not once. And the physician just kept refilling the combination. I gave her troches. So these are basically lozenges dissolved between the cheek and gum. Really easy for a busy. She's a psychiatrist. So she has an MD degree. She's a psychiatrist, very knowledgeable, very smart, believes in hormones for mental health and all these good things. So she's been on her prescription. So she called me last year and she said, the holidays, you know, I was coming for holidays back to Georgia. And she goes, I really need your help. You know, last year the gynecologist said, I'm not giving you any more hormones because you're 65 now and there's no research. I was like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. We just published the, again, the 10 million woman study was just published in Medicare patients, right? Medicare patients. And I said, look, I have no problem with doing this with you. You know, very good. Absorbed in the, you know, orally between the gum and the mucosa. So you do get some oral absorption, but it's mostly transbucal. So you get this bypass of the liver and any reduction in toxic metabolites that way versus taking a pill. So I'm like, we're very safe with this. The year before, she begged her gynecologist just to refill the prescription. She did for that one more year. So this year she's like, she'd been off it for three months. She goes, I can't function, I can't think. I'm really, really struggling. And we need to fine tune this. So did her Labs and. And put her, you know, back on an adjusted dose of her hormones, really. And she's like, oh, my God, like, energy, feel good thinking and get through my charts in a third to a quarter of the time that it took me to chart before. And I was like, okay, that's tangible difference. That is a tangible difference. And I get it because, you know, like, certain things, like I use progesterone before I get on stage to speak. Like, I want to be extra quick with those answers and just become really a part of a regular routine. And regular for me, skincare routine, because I created the topical. But also, you know, that nighttime routine when you're adding in the oral progesterone at night and that, you know, game changing. Game changing and cognition, really.

Yeah. You know, I was talking to one of our telemedicine patients who's in her 70s, she's an ex ER nurse, you know, and, you know, had never been on hormone replacement therapy, was relatively healthy, doing all the right things. Right. You know, very functional medicine driven, and got on hormones and titrated slowly. And she was just like, I had no idea how poorly I was sleeping because she kept blaming it on. Oh, it's because I have been a nurse. I was an ER nurse overnight for so long, my body's wired for it. And I'm like, no, it wasn't. You just did it all the way through menopause. You had no idea that you just continued. And even though she had been retired for a long time, she was like, oh, my God, I'm sleeping. And I can handle the stress of my life so much better because she's in a caregiver role and all these other things. And I think so much of the time we get used to as we women because we're so busy carrying the load for everybody feeling crappy. And because it's gradual and sort of ongoing, we don't notice how bad we feel until we have the opportunity for someone to help, whether it's progesterone and pregnenolone or full hormone replacement therapy, to actually feel the difference. And I think that's a travesty. We get so used to just feeling like crap.

So true. And powering through. How many times do we hear that statement? I'm just powering through, powering through my day, powering through sex, of just having to check that box and get it done because we're so driven and really, you know, able to do it. But it's. It's a struggle. And then when you're like, Ah, ease and flow. Ah, that's nice. And we do again, that's. I want to emphasize that's the 5 to 10% of it. It's the lifestyle things that we do. But this can. This is game changing. And I always told, and I told my. My colleague, the psychiatrist about this as well as my. And when I teach, we wouldn't ever stop thyroid hormone or insulin because of these bioidentical hormones because of someone's age. Right. There's no precedent for that. It makes no sense to say, okay, now we're not giving it to you. Not if you're. The delivery system is safe and you're using bioidenticals. We can feel really good about it.

No, absolutely, absolutely. So that brings me to another point. So before we got on this call, you know that this podcast interview, we were talking a little bit about kind of the other things that people sort of gloss over. So I think there is a huge push to help women understand hormones are not dangerous and that this should be part of your care, looking at your longevity. But there's also just the responsibility of hormones or not. It's not like all of a sudden something magical happens and you go through menopause and everything down below the waist is no longer important. Important, right. The importance of still continuing to do pap smears and, you know, a vaginal Pap smear and like that. Yeah, I mean, like, there's. Those parts still exist, just like the rest of your body. They didn't fall out of your body. Right. So let's talk about that, because I think people miss that. People miss that Vaginal. Vaginal care is still vaginal care, hormones or not.

Right, right. And I am very passionate about that because I was, you know, I've always been passionate about it because early in my practice I had. Same year, I think it was 2000, I had two women come in to my rural practice in Georgia and say, you know, and be diagnosed. I diagnosed them with one with a vaginal cancer, another with a vulvar cancer. And they hadn't had anyone examine them for 20 years. And so like they were maybe in their 60s or seven, early 70s, late 60s at the time. And because they're told, well, I'd had a hysterectomy or I'm post menopause and I don't need pap smears anymore and no one's looking. And it's so important. I really do believe that vaginal health is as if not more important than oral health or dental health. Like we Brush our teeth, floss, all these things, you know, but we're not like evaluating the vagina. And vaginal microbiome is crucial. And now we have more and more research coming out about the vaginal microbiome and how our ph changes as we age. It becomes more alkaline, more predisposed to infections, odor, we get more predisposed to bladder infections. And asymptomatic bladder infections are debilitating at old age. So you don't want to get that. And nor do you want to be on daily antibiotics or recurrent antibiotics. So vaginal ph, vaginal health, the, you know, integrity, I'm saying the anti aging of the vagina, reverse aging of the vagina. And we can do it, we can have vaginas of our 25 year old self or 35 year old self. We really want healthy vagina because that microbiome, as that shifts, as that urine, as that vaginal ph gets more alkaline, you have more diversity, more different forms of bacteria where that's good in the gut. The vagina needs just really monodiversity. So we need more of the Lactobacilli that specifically Crispatus iners, Gasseri and Ginsi, if I said them correctly. So those four strains, especially Lactobacillus crispatus, are really important for vaginal health. And so as we age and that ph changes and you know, and maybe you have a new sexual partner some other time in your life. You've had one your entire life, fine. And then you have a second or a 50th, it doesn't matter. But you know, no one's asking that question of a 60 year old or a 70 year old. And so back in 2023, you know, Betty, you know, that's because we've been friends for a while now, but I had retired my practice basically from 2015 to 2023. I started here in Dallas. So I had moved from Georgia several years ago and so I started my practice here. But before I did, a colleague of mine that I knew had, you know, she's at 72, gorgeous, fit. Had. Sorry about that. It's okay. Had studied, you know, nutrition, was a great. In the health and wellness space. But she'd been getting hormones. Hormones. She'd been very sexually active, had multiple partners over the past decade and no. And was getting these bioidentical hormones, you know, sometimes pellet, sometimes creams, topicals, orals, etc. But no one did a pap smear. And so she said she had called me, you know, the around winter of 2023, and said, Dr. Anna, you know, have, you know, I've been having this spotting and I. And I, well, you know, what did your. What did your gynecologist say? What did your hormone doctor say? And they said, well, I think it's because of the hormones. I'm like, okay, well, you know, what was your pap smear and what did the ultrasound say? Oh, they haven't done it. So three months later, she gets these tests done and she has stage four because she continued to have spot. And they kept adjusting her hormones. They kept saying, oh, it's because of your hormone will adjust it. And they like, that is blind care. That is so bad. And. And when they finally did the. The Pap smear and the ultrasound, she had stage four cervical cancer. Completely preventable. Completely preventable.

Which is usually caused by hpv, which is so common.

Yep, yep. It's very. It's very common. And again, our immune system designed to take care of it, but just came out of a pandemic. People got injections or infections of COVID and that changes your immune system. So you have to be, like, constantly reinforcing, forcing, and raising the battalions of your immune system. And, you know, we have to practice medicine differently post pandemic than we did pre pandemic. And forever. A long way to answer forever. You know, you need a Pap smear. Now, granted, if you've not been sexually active, you have one partner for all those years and he never had another partner. All that was negative. Fine, maybe once every three years. Doesn't mean you can't get a vaginal cancer or vulvar cancer. You know, you have to get a pap smear and Medicare will cover it every two years. I think every one to two years, Medicare will cover it, but I think every two to three years, if you have a negative history and negative HPV history, I mean, I think. I think that's fine. But I still, like, will examine, physically examine my patients every year.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's really important, even the person that's in a dedicated, committed relationship without saying, nah, nasty things about relationship. That's what you know. Right, Right. The end of the day, you don't. You wouldn't go without a colonoscopy if you were intelligently remembering that the risk for colon cancer is pretty significant. You shouldn't go without a Pap smear either.

Yeah, yeah. Because it is preventable. And it's, you know, if insurance doesn't cover it, it's a 50 to $75 test. It is worth it. Yeah, it is worth it.

Well, and then that brings me to kind of another conversation. Like the FDA obviously had their, their panel about the black box warning about, you know, estradiol, particularly estriol cream used vaginally. But I think it's so every woman should care about the health of their vaginal tissue and vaginal environment. But I think also women don't realize that there's things that they can do that are both over the counter and, and, and, or, you know, estriol vaginally and that every woman should be doing something to protect the girly parts.

Absolutely. Yeah. The FDA black box warning on estrogen, it's really become controversial. Why that's still there because the research never, never warranted that black box warning. It never warranted, especially on vaginal products, but transdermals, et cetera, I mean, really never warranted that black box warning on estrogen. But for men's health, testosterone, that black box warning got removed. So but it, you know, like that's, but, you know, testosterone converts to estrogen. So, you know, help me understand that. Like, it is just, you know, honestly that I, that black box warning is misogynistic. So, I mean, it really is.

100%. Yeah, 100%. So I think, you know, I think the other thing is we're looking at precursor hormones or very weak non systemic hormones that protect the vaginal tissue. So the other one that doesn't get talked about very much is part of your product Jelva, which is dhea, not D E A, D H E A, which is a precursor to testosterone, androstenedione and eventually estrogen, but has also got good research showing it protects vaginal tissue from atrophy as well.

Oh my gosh. Absolutely. Absolutely. And so like a little on the backstory, you know, again, working in compounding hormones since 99. 1999 mean the song 1999. That's it. Yep. Doing compounding hormones for so long and really working and being a gynecologic surgeon and then having my own story, reversing early menopause and, and infertility and you know, going through my own perimenopause, becoming completely asymptomatic with what I know, like, again, I call it my keto green method. But with lifestyle and hormones, it, I mean, it really just, you know, opened my mind to how to help my patients. And so when I started, you know, I would use compounded hormones preoperatively first post operatively for patients who had had Sling procedures or if I saw them and they had a sling and atrophy, I always put them on vaginal hormones and DHEA and testosterone specifically because very, very safe. Safe. And you know, vaginal applied hormones or topical hormones on the vulvar area are very, very safe. And so I would use these hormones to get good tissue to operate on. If I was going to do a bladder sling and I was gonna, you know, do any vaginal anterior and posterior repair, we call that cystocele and rectocele repair. I'd use hormones. So I had good tissue. And. And so I was like, well, you know, as I started getting better and better at the dose and the com ingredients, I. My patients would come in for their pre op after being on my vaginal hormones for a couple of months or topical hormones on the vulvar area for a couple of months. And they'd be like, Dr. Ann, I'm no longer having incontinence. I'm asymptomatic. I'm not having symptoms of my pressure in my vagina anymore from the cystocele or whatever. And that was. They didn't have to have surgery. They didn't have to have surgery. So I went from doing two to three surgeries a week, week, both minor and major, to needing to do two to three surgeries a year because your body has the ability to recover again, hormones and lifestyle, these, these things make a. Nutrition, of course, make a huge difference in our quality of life and our longevity. And so when I closed my practice back in 2015, 20, you know, patients were like, Dr. Anna, no one to give us your lotions, potions, creams and gels anymore. And so I said, I committed to creating something that was available. I said, better than anything I can write on a prescription pad, but available without a prescription. And so that's where I combined and began the research on dhea. Vulvar and vaginal research. You know, there many good studies, scientific studies, since early 2010 by Dr. Ferdinand Labrie, specifically out of McGill University in Canada, and even doing this research on vaginal DHEA for a long time with great safety, looking at in breast cancer patients what conjugates, what's absorbed systemically and overall quality of life, and found those same things. And so I have a patient now, she just turned 68. I have to keep adjusting her age because I've known her for a long time now. And she's been using my Jalva cream since it came to market in 2016. She goes, Dr. Anna, I have the vagina of a 25 year old.

That's awesome.

I love that. And you, we see that clinically, you do too. I mean, I have patients who like, they come in and I can't even do a pap smear because they have so much atrophy. And we work with using java. I mean, it's easy. Apply it topically. There's some good absorption. I will say clitoris to anus. Most important real estate of our body. You don't want bad, you don't want anything bad to happen down there. Just not fun.

No.

And so from incontinence issues, dryness, clitoral atrophy, loss of orgasm, you've got to use this, these, you know, products topically. Then of course, anal health. So the entire perineum, so to avoid fissures and hemorrhoids and just support your body's natural ability to repair. And so yeah, so Jovi combined plant stem cells also with stem cell technology from the alpine rose, which has been used in high end cosmetics for a number of years. And emollients to really drive the ingredients deep into the tissue. So you get that, that moisturizing, nourishing benefit. But what we know about DHEA too, and they studied this in Eye health for dry eye syndrome. Like dry eyes, I know, know, like the, you know, they lose, you lose the eye gland production. The same thing is happening in the vulva, vaginal area, really the vulvar areas where our glands are. So from the Bartholin's glands to the Skenes glands, I mean we know that we. And plus just the epithelial cells. So we restore the, you know, it helps to restore that healthy functioning and naturally restore your moisture. Moisture. So that's why, you know, Dr. Ronnie Bannock is using DHEA eye cream. So yeah, using my jalva cream right now on the eye, upper eyelid and lower eyelid to help with dry eyes. I'm like, it's working that same way on the vagina. Yeah.

Well, I think it's so important because, you know, we in our kind of prim and proper and I'm meaning that not in a nice way. We don't want to talk about the nether regions. But women are, you know, dealing with all of those problems. They're dealing with painful sa and they're, you know, not being able to do any kind of jumping or laughing or coughing without having to cross their legs. Like that's a serious issue. Not to mention I've met many women that are like walking is painful because that tissue Is so dry, so paper thin, so sore that they can't walk. Right. Like walk. Going for a fitness walk is uncomfortable and they don't have to deal with that. But nobody's talking to them about some very basic things that can actually be protective and also beneficial long term term.

Oh, and I just want to, you know, because I'm a horseback rider, so, you know, when I was had early menopause and experienced that, not to mention child, you know, post childbirth, but that vulvar vaginal tissue was very uncomfortable to horseback ride. It was just very uncomfortable. And. And cycling, same thing. I mean, you know, if you're not addressing that area, there is no bike pad seat or bike seat pad that is thick enough to make that comfortable. There's just not. But you really want to keep that, the integrity of that tissue healthy. Just like we pay attention to our laugh lines and smile lines, right?

Yeah.

We want to make sure that, you know, we've got good healthy tissue.

Yeah, absolutely. So that brings me to the last little conversation that I want to have because you're one of the few people that talk about this hormone oxytocin. And we talked a little bit about sex. The sex brings on a ton of oxytocin. But oxytocin is a lot more than just pleasure. It's love. Right. And it deserves its fair due. Yes.

And it's immune boosting. Right. It helps with focus and concentration. It gives you that good, happy, joyful feeling or that presence in your body. It's a hormone of trust. So when we are losing the battle between stress and cortisol, and so when, you know, and oxytocin, we have those feelings of, you know, social isolation, distrust. Like you go into a store and you're like, oh, there's my friend from 30 years. And I'm just gonna pretend I don't see them, you know, like. And you start lose that inner interaction. Also relationships start to disintegrate. You feel less connected to your partner. You feel, you know, distant and more anhedonia, loss of pleasure and enjoyment. You're not doing the activities you love doing. Like, oh, I used to play pickleball all the time and now I'm not playing at all for the last year. I'm like, oh, that could be an oxytocin issue. That thing, you know, that get up. That really rejuvenating and longevity improving hormone oxytocin. And we know this too, because I look for signs of it in our, in our centenarians, people that have lived over a hundred Years when you look at the research, the, in the book by Dan Buettner on the blue zones, you think okay, well they have community, they have faith, they're out in nature, they have good family connections, long lasting relationships or marriages. And these are all oxytocin increasing behaviors. So in this world where we're like, oh, we've got a stress management. Stress manage. I'm like that, just saying stress management. I mean isn't that stresses you out? It stresses you out totally. So I said well what do we do for play? How do you, you know, and I like to coin the term oxyplay, we want to increase, do microdosing of oxytocin throughout the day by with oxy, play just playing with your pet, getting outside, calling a girlfriend that you love and connecting and doing intimacy, massage, facial, play time. I mean all of those good things. Things increase oxytocin.

Yeah, yeah, I think it does deserve its fair due.

It does, it is so important. We can make it ourselves in the greatest pharmacy in the world that's within our own body so we, we can produce it ourselves. And because it's the most alkalinizing hormone, I think it really contributes to that longevity, decreasing inflammation in your body. And I see it all the time, people come in one way, you know, looking miserable or exhausted, etc, like okay, well we'll do these things but focus on what you do for fun and play and incorporating, you know, making time for intimacy and doing these things. And they come back the next time and they're like lit up and they feel better and their blood markers improve. And I remember this one patient in particular, she was in her late 30s and she had three small children at, at home. And she was, you know, she'd been seeing me for a few months at this point and I said to her, so you know, what do you do for fun? Because there was anxiety, she had lost focus, you difficulty concentrating. I mean I had her dialed in with nutrition. She was working with a life coach. We weren't getting there. And she goes what I, what did you used to do for fun? And she said I used to love to dance. I was always a dancer, I love dancing. And I said well you know, can you, can you start that again? She's actually been eyeing this dance center. On my way home from the kids school, I thought maybe I could, maybe I can stop in there. And I said well give it a try. And, and when she came back in I said well what were you doing? What did you do different? She goes I just started Dancing. I take dance classes two to three times a week and I love it and I'm having so much fun. And just from doing that, that is the power of oxytocin in y'. All. That is self care. That is the best way to defeat stress, not just manage it and to really feel empowered. So and again, in the research, and we like to see more and more research, but people are paying attention from the groundbreaking research on heart rate variability with the Heart Math Institute showing increased heart rate variabilities associated with increase in oxytocin. Like, how good is that? Makes sense.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Now, you have a special course that's coming up. I think it's called Breeze. Is that right?

That's right, Breeze. So Breeze through menopause. And you can do it before, during, or after menopause. Really. It is a 10 day program and you get 10 each day. You get a daily video, a motivational, a motivational segment, and you also get a menu plan for the day that's following my Peter Green. You get all of that included for the 10 days, plus three live calls with me, three group live calls with me for Q A, for coaching, support, what I love to do, and good community. And it's for 17. So we have that full event for. Yeah, for really, like unbelievably easy price to get you in, get you committed. You'll have little, you know, questionnaires that really get you going and thinking and inspired and also be able to monitor how you're doing at the beginning. But we see improvements in just 10 days. We see the. Oh my God, so many good stories. I mean, I just guarantee it. So, yeah, so that is coming up. It. It is my Breeze through menopause program. And we'll have a link for you, Betty.

Yes. In the. And yeah, we'll put it in the show notes. We'll make sure that we have it. Yeah, I think it's important we talk a lot about hormones. It's the foundation that has to be there for the hormones to really work. They're the icing on the cake, not the cake itself.

Yep, yep, yep. Well, it's happening live, so I invite everyone listening to join us now.

That's awesome. That's awesome. Deal. So we'll make sure that we put that in the show notes and we'll have that in there so everybody can sign up. Dr. Anna, it's been so good. You know, this is hilarious. We're really good friends and we, we do podcasts together or see each other at conferences because our schedules are so hard to coordinate, but I've had so much fun talking to you.

Oh, always. Always. Thank you for having me. Thanks for all you do.

Yes. Thank you so much. And thank you, everybody, for listening to Menopause Mastery on the podcast. And if you happen to be watching us on YouTube, don't forget to subscribe and like. And leave us a comment below on what you found to be the most valuable about this conversation, and then I'll be back with you next week.